Blue Drop 天使の避難所 Tenshi no Hinansho -- Refuge of Angels
by QuasiSybarite
Summary: <html><head></head>Description: After the TV series. Tsubael finds herself, the Commander, and Azanael in the care of the forime from the school and together they struggle with the changes brought about in the early days of the war. They also find that the sabotage of Blue had a lasting, unanticipated effect on all three survivors from the Kamioki Island incident. Tsubael x Azanael, Mari x Hagino.</html>
1. 救う Sukuu -- Rescue

CHAPTER 1 - 救う _Sukuu_ - Rescue

Tsubael found herself as near nothing; a hint, a figment within limitless blackness.

She felt gentle but unsettling motion- as though her whole being had been reduced to no more than a speck of dust and cast out to drift through the vastest of voids; flitting and weaving within the listless tumult of random, invisible currents. She regained a sense of time as the incessant drifting and spinning gave rise to wooziness and along with it a gradual awareness of self.

Pain and chill from the other parts of her body dragged her further into an unkind consciousness. She deduced that her situation had to be bad: her right shin wracked and seared, the shoulder on the same side radiated additional torture that spread up and into her neck, and her already swimming head felt heavy with unrelenting pressure. She became aware of the labor of her own breaths as her full faculties seemed to return in a rush.

She came to realize she was no longer in the capsule ejected from Blue, evidenced by the filth of dank soil and prickly leaves now beneath her legs and lower back. Her aching head and shoulders rested against something of greater comfort; a support smooth, firm, and warm.

She eased her eyes open to find herself facing skyward. The waning glow of a late evening sky peeked from between inky silhouettes of overarching treetops. She recognized the sounds of forime close by, prattling in muddled, indiscernible tones. After a few moments of concentration she felt as though she knew some of the voices- some of the students the Commander had been living with at the academy, she surmised.

Cautiously, gingerly, she swiveled her throbbing head, straining to better survey her surroundings. She scanned into the dusk to her right, then left to find surrounding brush, confining and dense; allowing her to see only what she guessed as a few paces in any direction. She rolled her head back to check above and startled as she came to find a forime face staring down in reverse, presumably watching her the whole time. She relaxed a little when she recognized the girl- the tall one who enjoyed refining food for others, she recalled.

Eventually, an odd reaction became evident on the Tall One's face; as if Tsubael's wakefulness struck her as amusing in some way. She maintained the doltish look and continued to gaze down. Her eyes stayed fixed on Tsubael's for some time before she slackened her mouth a little to grunt "Hey," as what had to have been a terse, primitive syllable of greeting.

Despite her slow, tumbling nausea, Tsubael now began to better understand her body's orientation from visual cues of her surroundings. With her left hand, she reached up to perform a tactile survey, confirming some of her assumptions. Through touch, she could tell a crude dressing had been banded around her skull and that the supportive warmth beneath her head and shoulders had to be emanating from the Tall One's thighs. She strained to tilt back a bit further and caught a better glimpse of the forime's dark, ornamented clothes. Not what appeared to be customary coverings for a forime, she pondered; perhaps a uniform? A costume?

It came back to her in a rush; everything that had happened- the school festival; the play.

The Tall One had a role in that play- the play that never concluded; the play at the site that she had failed to protect for the Commander.

She let her eyes sink shut. She swallowed. A feeling of dismay flooded into her as she now remembered more of what had happened- right up to the point Commander Ekaril ejected her from Blue. She weltered within a mix of gratitude and betrayal for those final actions of her closest and only friend.

Had Commander Ekaril succeeded? Had she stopped Novall? Tsubael wondered.

Eager for an answer, she began to ask, "The Commander... did... did she-" and then stopped herself, giving up, realizing she had just wasted what little strength she had trying to get information from a creature who would have no idea what she was talking about.

"Um, I'm not sure what you mean," the Tall One stated the obvious.

Tsubael released a disappointed sigh. The forime did not mean to be unhelpful, she reminded herself- it seemed doubtful that any of them could possess enough awareness of the situation to be of any use.

She then gasped, filling with the sudden, thrilling understanding that Commander Ekaril had to have succeeded, knowing that none of the forime from that school would be alive if she had not.

That small surge of triumph seemed to come at a cost to her body as her heart began to beat a bit stronger and she had to clamp her eyes tighter in response to the intensifying throb in her head and the redoubled pain in her arm and leg.

Still driven to find out the details of what happened, she decided to ask simpler questions, ones the primitives might be able to answer. "How did I get here?"

"I'm not sure."

Tsubael felt herself almost groan in reflexive disappointment.

The Tall One then added, "We found you here- with a soldier from your side... was that your commander?"

Tsubael opened her eyes wide. Panic set in as her mind began to run wild with the possibilities implied by the forime's statement. "Soldier? My side? Who? How many?"

The forime seemed nonchalant about the matter, appearing ignorant or indifferent to the peril she and her whole planet were in. "Just one. She told us to keep you hidden. Wakatake told us she knew both of you so we went along with what the other one said."

The other's account left Tsubael baffled for a few moments until she could concentrate enough through her pain and dizziness to deduce who it had to have been. Azanael, she thought; Wakatake knew her as well, would have recognized her. Azanael could have survived, traced her capsule's automated distress beacon, and retrieved her from the sea before any reconnaissance craft the main fleet might have found her, Tsubael concluded.

"Where is she? The soldier?" she asked as she urged her body to sit up in a reflexive attempt to locate the other. Her head swam from the effort. She closed her eyes again.

The Tall One's hands eased Tsubael's shoulders back down onto her lap. The forime assumed a infuriatingly haughty tone as she said, "Look, I may not know a lot about what you are but Wakatake said your blood turns white or something; and that means you've been bleeding from your head- a lot. And I'm pretty sure you have bones like ours- and the ones in your right shin are broken. You have to settle down and stay still until we can find a safer place and a way to move you without making things worse."

Though aggravated by the forime's bossiness, Tsubael begrudgingly decided to acquiesce since the Tall One's deductions surprised her with their accuracy. She admitted that after hearing the Tall One's application of logic she felt a little better about trusting that forime with her immediate well-being.

Despite the discouragement of her continuing pain, she felt compelled to press the other for more information, eager to find something that she might use to improve her situation. "I must speak to the one who brought me here. Where is she?"

"She's gone. She told us to look after you and then left in a hurry." After a moment the Tall One seemed hesitant to add, "That was a few hours ago, before it started getting dark. She kind of seemed like she was in bad shape as well- like maybe her spaceship crashed worse than yours did?"

Tsubael felt herself swallow; now realizing that Azanael had likely gone on some brash, idiotic final mission to finish herself off in an attempt to match the Commander's noble sacrifice. For a fleeting moment, she found herself selfishly wishing neither the Commander nor that overgrown showoff had been so consumed by their own sense of duty as to cast her aside and leave her behind to face her own inevitable, less courageous end in the alien world.

Though Azanael's arrogance and showoff nature was beyond annoying, Tsubael acknowledged that given the finality of the Commander's bravest act that Azanael would have been her only surviving arume ally; Azanael who could have left her to die, but instead chose to save her; Azanael who as a final insult made sure Tsubael would be left with a debt that could never be settled; Azanael who she could never see again to thank.

It almost seemed that the Tall One understood Tsubael's thoughts when she then obviously concocted and stated, "I'm sure she'll be back... I could tell from the way she spoke to us. She was probably going to get help."

Tsubael released the truth in a sigh. "There won't be any help."

The Tall One continued her pointless speculation, saying, "Maybe she went off on some other mission? Maybe someone else crash landed like you did and she's gone off to rescue them too?"

Hearing the Tall One's last theory caused Tsubael's throat to ache. "There's no one else to rescue... not from our side." She swallowed to fight the sensation as she considered how the cavalier pilot had chosen to join the cause she and the Commander had taken; Commander Ekaril would not have succeeded without the advent of Azanael's skills.

She closed her eyes tight, hoping to quash what felt like an impending flow of tears. "How bad has the fighting been here?" she asked, now feeling a strong need to shift the conversation to any other topic than either of her fallen comrades.

"Hours ago, there were a lot of explosions close by... then nothing. All of those big ships above the school just sort of drifted south and the explosions seemed to follow where they went. Everything got really quiet once the light stared to fade; no more flashes in the sky, no more big booms from behind the hills." Her previously nonchalant tone dropped to betray a measure of regret as she added, "I think might be over- everything."

The words and their delivery added to Tsubael's gloom. She now concluded that the seemingly indifferent forime well understood what had taken place- the subjugation of her entire world- and chose to maintain a strong outward appearance for the sake of the rest. That forime, she could tell, had been created to be a leader.

She then found herself admitting that the Commander's actions could never have stopped anything; she knew all along it would be a waste, a pointless mission, a gesture without lasting impact, but she chose to follow Commander Ekaril anyway- she now understood the simple truth that she would have followed the Commander anywhere.

She then began to second-guess her own actions, wondering if she should have found a way to sabotage Blue's final mission- perhaps a well-intentioned betrayal to save the Commander from her own futile goal. That may possibly have been the better way to serve her, Tsubael thought- to support Ekaril best by undermining her, ensuring she would live to lead the way in a far less hopeless operation.

She felt an immediate sting of guilt at that thought. Since that initial catastrophe that had killed countless number of natives and all but two of Blue's crew, she had been the only one left for the Commander to rely on, to trust completely- their eventual closeness in those twenty skoors spent in contact only with each other demanded that no such chicanery could have taken place and at such an important time.

The pressure of the tears she managed to choke-back earlier had returned, redoubled. Commander Ekaril, she thought. She squeezed her eyes shut a bit tighter and felt the tears escape to run down her temples and then back to her ears. She barely contained a heavy sob, now fully facing the reality that she had lost the most precious person in her life and she now lay stranded in an alien world: seriously injured, abandoned, and without options.

She could never return home, she knew. Her life too would end in this ugly, dirty, foreign place. Her people had conquered the forime and they would soon find her and execute her for her grand treason- and for the killing of hundreds of her fellow arume when she had dispatched with the rest of the advanced fleet to protect Ekaril. To her people, she was surely reviled as defective; a monster.

She then grew self-conscious, realizing that she had allowed herself to show weakness in front of the forime, so she choked back her self-pity and opened her eyes to look again at the Tall One.

The forime gazed back, her expression softer than before, returning a look that seemed to almost mimic an understanding of her situation. She then shifted her countenance to present a slight smile, as though she might have sensed the weight of Tsubael's profound collection of miseries.

"We'll find our way through this." She paused and added, "I'm Akane Kawashima," she said.

Tsubael realized the forime had begun one of their introductory rituals. It seemed worthwhile to foster the other's friendliness so she decided to participate in the perfunctory exchange. "Tsubael," she replied.

"Your eyes... they're beautiful," the Tall One said, her tone suddenly reserved, bashful.

"Someone's coming!" The warning came as a whisper from one of the other forime from close by.

The entire group seemed to be holding their breaths. The forced silence gave emphasis to the approaching sound of heavy, uneven footsteps against the forest floor. It became obvious by the syncopated gait of the approaching party that they might be wounded, staggering. A few more, slower steps sounded and then a stumble followed by a final series of thuds.

After a few tense, hushed moments, the Tall One pulled back and gently lowered Tsubael to rest flat on the ground. She then rose to creep toward the area where from which the unknown person's collapse had sounded. Soon others in the vicinity began to rise from their crouched positions as they seemed to follow the Tall One's lead.

From behind the closest thicket, one of them gasped, "Senkoji-san!"

At that sound, Tsubael's body seemed to demand she rise and join the others. Despite her pain, she rolled to her side and struggled to crawl and follow the others, now overflowing with hope that Commander Ekaril really was the one who came to them through the woods.

After dragging herself about a meter, her head began to swim and her arms buckled to drop her face-first onto the ground. With her eyes now cinched in agony, she began again to pull herself blindly toward the growing din of relief and excitement from the group a short distance away.

"Help her!" the Tall One's voice boomed out to command the others.

Within seconds, Tsubael felt herself lifted from beneath each shoulder followed by the sensation of hanging, being carried forward by a warm body at either flank. She opened her eyes. Despite her miserable condition she now bubbled with elation as she took in the incredible sight of two familiar Arume: Commander Ekaril and Azanael.

The two sat upright upon the ground, slumped against the trunk of a tree for support as the forime attempted to examine and tend to their injuries.

By overjoyed reflex, Tsubael felt herself gush, "Commander!" She closed her eyes again, letting herself succumb to a fit of joyful sobs.

She felt her forime escorts settle her down onto the ground. She felt the warmth of forime hands stroking and patting her back, seeming to appreciate and share in her happiness. She reopened her eyes, needing to see Ekaril, now determined to know what state her beloved Commander was in.

In the dim and fading light it seemed obvious Commander Ekaril's condition was grave: charred blotches on her face and neck, one of her eyes squeezed shut and the other half-lidded, her breaths looked labored as though she suffered through immense pain.

Despite those obvious physical problems, Commander Ekaril had a strange air of peace about her. To Tsubael, she appeared to possess the discreet piety of someone who had discovered the truth behind a long-vexing mystery.

The Commander's half-open eye contacted Tsubael's. "Tsubael," she sighed. She visibly labored to swallow and showed a small smile. After a few moments, she struggled to say, "Someone helped us- all of us." She then rolled her head to look to her right.

Tsubael followed the Commander's gaze to where Azanael sat also propped against the tree. She considered the other in the worst shape of the three of them: the skin of her face and neck was split and blistered; both her eyes seemed swollen completely shut, dried blood and soot crusted the whole left side of her face, and most of her scorched and tattered uniform seemed saturated from earlier uncontrolled bleeding.

The rapid beat of approaching footsteps on the forest floor seemed to set everyone on high alert. The whole group went still and silent at once.

As the hurried steps drew closer an excited voice called out, "Sugawara-sensei says the school is safe! She told us to bring the alien!" The group seemed to ease, chattering excitedly as they rose again from their concealment.

As the two running forime had nearly reached the group, Tsubael recognized one as Mari Wakatake.

Suddenly, Wakatake jetted past the other and broke through brush, now sprinting toward the group. She seemed to leap through the last few meters and flung herself toward Ekaril like a missile.

Tsubael felt herself wince as Wakatake threw herself onto the injured Commander but she forgave the other's brutishness when she witnessed the Commander's obvious relief in the other's clumsy, overeager embrace.

Tsubael found herself again in a losing struggle with tears. In that moment, it seemed she and all the other onlookers were equally taken by the sight of Wakatake's wordless reunion with the Commander as the two stayed locked together, silent, near-motionless for many moments.

The Tall One was the first to speak, apparently trying to turn the group's focus back to survival. "Everybody, let's get them to the school infirmary." She then stepped behind Tsubael, scooped under her arms, and began to lift her with the help of another forime.

Tsubael's head swam. She lost sight of the Commander as she felt herself being positioned and swung around. Things were happening faster than she could keep up with. As she finally grew more accustomed to her new situation in the support of the forime, she began to ponder the limitations of forime medicine and that led her to a sudden, desperate realization that only she had seemed to consider.

"Azanael?" Tsubael called out. Akane and the forime holding her stopped, apparently understanding and allowing her to address the other as some three other forime struggled to roll and lift Azanael's lanky, lethargic form. "Your craft... where is it?"

Azanael seemed listless as if unable to hear or understand.

Tsubael raised her voice, hoping to raise a response, better get through. "Getour? Where is Getour?"

Azanael's head seemed to perk and rotate toward the sound of Tsubael's question. She seemed to collect herself and then struggled to croak, "water," before apparently slipping from consciousness completely.

"Take me to the water, now," Tsubael then ordered the forime who held her upright.

"You're going to the infirmary." The finality of the Tall One's tone implied the issue was settled.

Tsubael struggled to control her temper as best she could and attempted to explain the facts of the matter; "The burns they have are from heavy neutron exposure. Nothing in your most advanced medicine can help them. They won't live more than two days as they are now. Her ship should have something we can use to heal them- in its emergency kit. I must get to-"

"We'll just injure you further if we have to make a side trip. I'm taking you to the infirmary so we can try to set that broken leg for you."

As Tsubael felt hands clutch tighter at each of her limbs, she realized then that she was offered no say in the matter. She called out to Commander Ekaril, "Commander, please tell them to let me go."

The Commander seemed conscious, but gave no response, as though the request had never reached her ears.

Knowing the lives of the other two were solely in her hands, now burning with frustration, Tsubael fought to free herself and lashed out, "I'll drag myself there if I have to! Let me go, you small-brained barbarians! I need to get to her craft now!" She then halted her struggle as she noticed a piercing gaze upon her.

Wakatake, shouldering one of the Commander's arms to hold her upright, had swiveled her head nearly backward to glare at her.

Tsubael had to look away, now self-conscious about her desperate, thoughtless outburst and lack of control in front of the Commander as well as the group of forime.

"Then I will take you," Wakatake said, her voice both calm and forceful.

The whole group seemed to still at the girl's statement.

"Wakatake, don't be-" the Tall One started.

"I'm not being anything! We need to find that ship now, before anyone else finds it!" Wakatake rebuked.

Tsubael looked back to Wakatake, met her gaze once again.

The girl's face was fixed in determination; she held an air of mature resolve that Tsubael had never before seen from her. At that moment, Tsubael began to realize that the Commander's impetuous companion might be her only capable ally on the whole forime planet.

The Tall One countered, "Let's get all three of them back to the school and then we can go and get whatever it is and bring it back to her. You can't carry her all the way to the shore and back... definitely not with her shin dangling in half like this."

"Yes, I can." Wakatake transferred her support of the Commander to another forime and turned to approach the Tall One. Her tone remained calm but her countenance carried an obvious air of challenge to the larger, older forime. "I'll use the groundskeeper's wagon. I can sit her on top of it and roll her to wherever the spaceship is." She added, "You make sure everyone else gets back to the school."

Wakatake then glanced to Tsubael for a moment and flashed what could only be interpreted as a cavalier grin. Without warning, she darted off into the woods, presumably to get the conveyance she had mentioned.

The Tall One released an aggravated groan. She and the other forime carried Tsubael a few steps sideways and set her gently back onto the ground next to a large tree.

Tsubael felt obliged to speak; to offer some kind of apology for her earlier outburst to the Tall One. She knew at least that the Commander would expect it of her. "Akane Kawashima," she began, "I made some regrettable remarks. I-I don't mean to seem ungrateful..." She struggled to recall the correct forime custom protocol for a formal apology. She tried what she thought might be appropriate, offering, "Please, forgive my outburst."

Akane the Tall One gave a slight, indifferent shrug in response as if to indicate the whole matter meant nothing. "Forget it- It takes a lot more than that to hurt my feelings." She then smiled and said, "Wakatake doesn't have far to go. She should be back here soon. I'll stay with you until she comes back."

"You should catch up with the rest- they need their leader." She added, "I trust you with the wellbeing of my comrades. Please, hide them once you get back to the school. They mustn't be found- by your people or mine."

Akane nodded. She showed a confident smile. "I know well how to keep things hidden in that school."


	2. 野蛮医学 Yaban Igaku -- Bush Medicine

CHAPTER 2 -野蛮医学 _Yaban Igaku_ - Bush Medicine

Wakatake's return took far longer than Tsubael expected and as the quiet, tense moments alone passed she tried to keep especially alert of her surroundings. Several times she thought she heard something rustling through the woods far to her left, opposite the direction from which she anticipated Wakatake's arrival, and the unexplained sounds set her further on-edge.

She tried to convince herself that she might be mistaken; she could not fully trust her perception due to the unending distraction of the pain in her leg, shoulder, and head. But again, she heard something, now certain that a faint rustle came from beyond the concealment of distant brush. She lifted herself as much as she could and twisted, scanning through the twilight to assess the source of the stirrings. She then turned back to face a far strong and steady sound coming from the Wakatake's expected direction.

In moments the girl came rolling back into the area with a rattling contraption pulled behind her. As she came upon Tsubael she released the handle of the cart, bringing herself and the conveyance to an abrupt stop. She stood, doubled at the waist, supported from her hands on the fronts of her thighs as she panted through a spate of labored huffs.

"How is the Commander?" Tsubael asked, eager for any information about her only and dearest Commander. She pried further to confirm some of her assumptions from what she had seen earlier, asking, "You were talking with her before, weren't you? Telepathically?"

Wakatake offered no response, continuing to huff and pant.

Tsubael then realized the overeager girl had completely winded herself and needed yet to catch her breath before she would be able to speak, so she returned her gaze to other direction, trying to stay apace their tactical situation. She peered deep into the shadowy distance, scanning with care as she waited for Wakatake to recover from her obviously overeager sprint.

She continued to inspect the area with a methodical, linear sweep from left to right. In her peripheral vision, she caught an interesting, faint glint and snapped her attention back to that spot but in that brief instant the feature seemed to have vanished. She whispered, "I heard something over there, before you got here. I think I just saw something- we may not be alone."

Wakatake then calmed her breathing a bit and squinted into the indicated direction. She seemed to linger in her scrutiny of one spot.

"You see something?" Tsubael asked, unsure how much better or worse forime could see in the dark than could arume.

Wakatake did not answer right away as if unsure. "I don't think so." She then said, "Let's get to that stuff before someone else finds it." She seemed to have more or less caught her breath and brought herself fully upright. She stepped closer and then crouched all the way down to clamp her arms around Tsubael's middle and began to hoist her upward.

Tsubael felt her body shock at the unexpected sensations of the contact. Wakatake's body seemed to glow with heat, instantly countering the pervasive chill Tsubael had felt since awakening in the forest. The girl's uniform practically steamed with perspiration, the skin of her arms was slick and wet; repulsive, unclean, but almost welcome; a comfort in some primitive, animalistic way. Wakatake's firm yet easy hold made Tsubael feel almost as though she could again levitate as she used to when channeling Blue's now nonexistent Emul force effects into her suit.

Then a deluge of impressions gushed into her mind. She felt suffocation, sinking, drowning. She saw Commander Ekaril in her forime disguise, her eyes squared with murderous rage. Profound, fathomless loss seemed to soak and wash through her.

Then the despair diminished, ebbed, ceding to a mélange of comfort, satisfaction, and understanding. She felt herself shivering, quaking, still encircled by the radiant heat and humidity of Wakatake's embrace. The other was panting again. Tsubael then recognized her own panting as well.

Wakatake spoke against the side of her head. "You watched the whole time," Wakatake said between breaths. She panted, "You couldn't look away." After a few moments her body seemed to settle down. She uttered, just above a whisper, "I should feel awful for you- It's all you could ever do."

Alarmed, Tsubael now realized that she had just experienced Wakatake's inexplicable ability; the same contact telepathy effect that Commander Ekaril had mentioned. She then lamented that Wakatake must have witnessed some of the many dreadful things about her in the experience: her indiscreet surveillances; her secret, deep infatuation with Ekaril; her failure to save the play; her failure to save the Commander. An immense surge of shame welled up from her gut and seemed to engorge her insides.

Wakatake resumed hoisting her onto the wheeled contraption, straining to lift her the final few centimeters onto the cart's cargo deck. She seemed to take great care and consideration in adjusting positioning her so that her legs found the stability needed for the expedition.

Tsubael's shame had begun to ebb and she felt compelled to find out what, specifically, Wakatake had been talking about. "What did I watch?" she asked.

Wakatake seemed to ignore the question.

"Mari," Tsubael tried again, "What did I watch?"

Wakatake paused and turned to contact Tsubael's eyes directly. She took a moment of obvious consideration before replying, "You had to watch everything: everything that went wrong; everything that hurt her, the one you care about; then everything that made you worry about her, her health, her sanity- you ended up being witness to all of it; feeling like a helpless bystander."

Tsubael shook her head, rejecting the notion by reflex. "That's not it. No, I-" she started to explain, to rationalize for herself as well as Wakatake.

Unable to find the right points to raise, she gave up, realizing that some of what the other said was right; Wakatake's conclusion had to have drawn directly from her own memories, however repressed.

"You came to love her," Wakatake stated.

Tsubael swallowed, unsure how to respond, knowing that it would be again futile to deny what the other said.

Wakatake smiled. After a moment, she added, "If it hadn't been for you she never would have come around, never would have tried to find me- It was you who kept her going, kept her alive all that time. I guess I should thank you for that."

Tsubael found Wakatake's over-generous conclusion too preposterous to let stand. She tried to get the facts out in the open, saying, "After the accident most of the ship was damaged so greatly that the automatic repair processes were all but useless- and the Commander was equally devastated; she didn't speak nor contact my eyes for almost a month of your time.

In first days, I hoped; I waited, but no rescue ever came. I presumed they thought Blue had been obliterated.

I had no idea what to do- all but the most basic ship functions seemed irreparable. Eventually I just picked an area to work and started repairing things as best I could. I used whatever pieces I could salvage from the rest of the ship made vacant by the losses we took from the accident.

Whenever I got a system working or another section of the ship back online, I would visit her quarters and inform her of the new status. One of those times- maybe once I had about a tenth of the ship back online- she looked up, as though she finally realized she wasn't alone. She met my eyes, and smiled. She complimented my efforts, thanked me, and issued new orders- it was the first time she had said a word since the incident.

It was all I could do to contain myself; I was so happy that she came around." Tsubael felt her eyes water, recalling the exact feeling of that moment. "She wanted me to sustain my efforts on Blue while she would integrate with your society and make contact with you. The three of us were the only survivors- she already knew where I was... the idea of finding you is what brought her back and kept her going." She added, "Nothing I could do could have been so influential."

Wakatake put a finger to her chin, and twisted her features as if perplexed by what Tsubael had just said. After a moment of apparent reflection, she asked, "So you're one of those smart-but-dense types, aren't you?"

Tsubael felt her jaw slacken, taken aback by the forime's crass, unexpected taunt. "What is that supposed to mean, exactly?"

Wakatake snickered, then turned, took up the cart's handle and began running. The wagon bumped and bounded over the rough surface of broken branches and tree roots. Its wheels, bolts, and panels set up a steady rumble and clatter as the girl brought them through the wood. Each little buffet and bounce transmitted piercing pain through Tsubael's injured leg and shoulder. She kept her eyes closed; trying to keep from crying out against the steady punishment afforded by the unsuitability of the filthy little conveyance.

After a time, her body found reprieve as she felt the cart rolling over the softness of grass for some distance, then eventually a smooth, quiet, level glide that had to be atop some kind of pavement.

At last, she felt everything stop. She heard the unmistakable slosh of lapping waves against the concrete faces of jetties and piers. She opened her eyes to find the once familiar harbor little more to behold than the lifeless black silhouettes of buildings beneath a clear, deep lavender sky arching over to meet gently undulating waves all the way to the horizon.

Realizing that Azanael could have left her ship almost anywhere, Tsubael tried to study the surroundings to determine the best place to start their search.

Wakatake seemed to scan the area as well and then suddenly picked up the handle of the cart to take them both to what appeared to be a long-disused wharf with a surface of decrepit timber. She turned to Tsubael and asked, "What will the stuff look like?"

"We need to find her craft first," Tsubael stated.

"I feel like she left it right here- it just looks like the right place... maybe under this dock." She stepped away to crouch and peer over the edge of the pier, as though to confirm her statement. "I think I can climb across the beams underneath to get onto the ship."

Tsubael realized then that Commander Ekaril had perhaps telepathically shared some impressions of the location to Wakatake back when the group still lay hidden in the forest. Now Wakatake's earlier insistence on taking her and her current assuredness about the locale made better sense.

"So what will the rescue thing look like?"

Tsubael dug deep into her memories from training and tried to describe how she expected the emergency kit on one of Noval's long range fighters might look; "Probably square and flat. It will be in the cockpit, close to the forward seat, most likely aft of it. The fasteners that hold it in place should shine faintly, even in the dark." She added, "But there are many variations- I don't know what that specific one will look like for certain."

"I'll find what I can and bring it to you." Wakatake showed a confident smirk along with the thumb-up gesture Tsubael recognized as a common sign of assurance inexplicably shared by forime and arume alike. The girl then walked to the edge of the pier, turned, and lowered herself over the edge, eventually disappearing from sight.

Tsubael soon heard the impact of the girl's shoes against something solid, presumably Azanael's fighter. As she waited she hoped that the Commander telepathically gave the girl whatever impressions or orders she could- at least had given her a notion of the basic entry protocols for a fighter like Azanael's.

"Is it the yellow thing next to the two blue dots or the blue thing on the other side?" Wakatake's muffled voice sounded from beneath the planks. "Push it? Turn it?"

Tsubael strained, forcing her voice to make sure her reply was received, "No. The yellow one- I think you would slide it toward the outside of the craft- then you push it when you can't slide it any further."

She soon heard the release of what she assumed to be the ship's top access hatch and felt some relief that she would not have to blindly talk the forime through the trial-and-error she had half-anticipated during their trip to the water.

Some minutes later she heard what had to be the bolts of the hatch sliding shut soon followed by a splash from beneath the boards of the dock. Her ears kept track of paddling and sloshing noises which seemed to head out toward the bay. At last Wakatake emerged at the end of the pier, dripping wet, and with something clutched in her right arm.

She left a small puddle of water under each squishing footstep as she trudged forward to bring the item to Tsubael. "I think this is it. It was behind the pilot chair thing. It had glowing buckles on the corners. It was attached really well... I think I might have broken the glowing things when I pulled it out," she said through near-chattering teeth. She presented the item to Tsubael.

Once Tsubael had the box in her hands she wasted no time in opening it desperate to see the needed serum among the kit's contents. She felt a wave of relief as she spotted among the jumbled contents a white metal tube capped in red with its tiny status lamp glowing vividly. She rummaged through the rest of the kit, expecting to find more of the desperately needed cellular repair agent but found no more.

"What?" Wakatake asked. "It isn't the right stuff?"

Tsubael shook her head. She hated to say the truth of the explanation, reluctant to burden Wakatake and herself with the obvious: they would have to choose. "It's only enough for one."

Wakatake stood shivering, hugging herself, seeming to stare at the slowly spreading puddle of seawater around her shoes. Her face then tightened with sudden anger. After a while she drew a hasty breath and blurted, "No."

Tsubael held the device up, challenging, shaking it as she said, "This is all there is. We'll have to decide who needs it the most and hope that the other-."

"No!" Wakatake shouted. "You're supposed to be brilliant. Hagino says you're stupendously smart. You're supposed to make impossible things look easy. She says you do it all the time!"

Tsubael felt her breath stop. The notion seemed to arrest her whole body, halt her thoughts. Commander Ekaril would never have said such flattering things about her to Wakatake, would she? Tsubael wondered. And why would the Commander exaggerate things so wildly? Did she really mean that?

Wakatake turned, gripped the handle of the cart and commanded, "Think of something brilliant while I take you back to the school."

Tsubael sighed and closed the case, securing its contents for the rough ride back. "Wakatake-san," she said, hoping she got the proper, respectful forime protocol correct, "Thank you for getting this." Her sense of duty to the Commander began once again to well-up inside as she added, "You're right- I will find a way for both of them to use this."

Wakatake nodded and then started with a sprint and maintained that frenetic pace for the whole first leg of their return. Wakatake's intense exertion had brought both of them to the academy much faster than Tsubael would have expected. The somewhat familiar place was little more than hulking shadows and patches of moonlight, apparently without a power source just as the buildings by the harbor. Once at what appeared to be the main building of the school, Akane and the heavy-bodied forime met them, seemingly in anticipation of their return. The two lifted and carried Tsubael inside the structure and through a dizzying series turns through its lightless corridors.

At last they brought her into a room glowing with the dim illumination from a few of the wax torches she knew the forime sometimes used for basic illumination. The Arume fleet had always planned to disable their electron-based power systems as part of their assault, Tsubael knew, but seeing the primitive state to which it reduced the already simple culture caused her to cringe with what seemed a disproportionate sympathy.

The pair who had carried her then set her onto a bed and her body felt some relief at once from the comparative luxury of the soft mattress and warm, smooth material now beneath her.

Once again, she found Akane staring down at her in reverse. She asked, "You got what you needed? Now you can help them, right?"

"I'll see what I can do," Tsubael said, now aware of the shadows from several forime at the side of the bed, all seeming to murmur to each other while scrutinizing her injured leg.

"And how about you?" Akane asked. She gave a slight smirk. "Can I get anything for you? We want to help you get better too."

Tsubael almost smiled at the other's consideration. Then she felt a sudden wave of suspicion.

Before Tsubael could react, Akane suddenly lowered to pin her shoulders to the bedding, looking sidelong as she did. She whispered, "I'm sorry."

Then the large forime dropped her full weight across Tsubael's middle, immobilizing her in a sudden crush of pressure and confinement. She felt a hand clamp over her mouth.

The large forime's weight made it impossible for her to draw a breath. She tried to flail, desperate, but found herself unable to do more than twitch a finger or limb. Hands closed in on her tender right calf and shin. In an instant, her lower leg erupted in agony. She had no breath to scream.

The two that had been holding her down suddenly fell away.

She gulped in a huge breath and released it in an uncontrollable wail. That newest abuse to her right leg had become the entirety of her existence. She felt herself moan with each release of breath. After some time, she began to regain control of herself- the pain diminished enough to allow her thoughts to branch out beyond dreading the next breath.

She opened her eyes to find everyone in the room silent, averting their gaze, obviously distraught over the commotion she had caused. An older looking forime sat next to the bed, close to her right leg, apparently the one who had caused the agony. On the floor next to the bed sat the older forime's accomplices; Akane and the Heavy One, both now appearing ill.

Still panting through waves of agony, she raised her head a bit higher and peeked down, surprised to see her shin once again straight, though swollen and near violet with deep bruising. The Old One must have used her hands to realign the broken bones, Tsubael concluded.

She looked to her left and found the Commander sitting upright on the floor close by, cocooned in a few layers of blankets. Her head hung down and both her eyes were closed, perhaps sleeping or in a state of deep concentration. Next to her on the other bed lay Azanael's lanky form, also seemingly in some unresponsive state.

The sight of both her comrades' dismal condition re-ignited Tsubael's desperation to find a way to help them. "I came here with a box... I need it now." she stated.

The Heavy One rose and handed the kit to Tsubael.

Akane then helped her to sit upright and stabilized her position by tucking cushions and blankets behind her. "We hated to do that, you know. It must have hurt terribly- I swear I could almost feel it myself."

Tsubael nodded to the other and opened the survival kit from Azanael's fighter.

Akane stayed close by her side, holding an electron-based lantern to better illuminate the contents as Tsubael removed, inspected, and considered each one.

The oldest forime, Sugawara-sensei- so the rest called her, read instructions aloud from a book to direct the Heavy One and the forime who wrote the play through each agonizing step of bracing and wrapping Tsubael's broken leg. The two meant well, Tsubael could tell, but their inexperience led them to make many mistakes, each one causing another sour spell of agony as they made and sometimes re-made different steps of the primitive repair of wood, cloth, and some sticky white mud.

Tsubael distracted herself from the intense discomfort by concentrating on the assortment of Arume survival items in her lap. Most of them had no use in their current situation, but as she thought about how each item was constructed, how each worked, she eventually began to form an idea that might allow her to administer a partial dose of the single-charge cellular repair serum to all three of them. Once she felt certain that she could use the emergency signal transmitter's low speed logic module to interrupt the serum canister's transjector mid-application, her only remaining quandary lay in determining whether an incomplete dose would be of any help or merely a waste of the single resource.

She knew there would be no other chance for her or her compatriots, so with great care, she tinkered and pieced her solution together.

Wakatake entered the room in fresh, dry clothes. She walked straight to the Commander and knelt next to her. She looked over to Tsubael and asked, "Did you figure it out?"

Tsubael nodded, presenting as positive an expression as she could manage given the low likelihood of success. "Bring her to me," she requested, already feeling so nervous about the consequences of her plan's failure that she wanted to call it off.

Wakatake and another forime helped the Commander to stand and brought her to the side of Tsubael's bed.

"Remove her coverings," she ordered. "This has to go into her chest for maximum effect." Her hands shook as she positioned the precious serum transjector against the center of Commander Ekaril's bosom and readied her thumb on the crude mechanical trigger she managed to clip into the logic module from the beacon. She drew a breath and held it as she released a jet of the atomized serum through the Commander's chest wall and then in almost the same instant hit the makeshift trigger on the other device to interrupt the transjector's routine. Once certain that her crude interruptor had worked, she released her breath. She shook the serum tube to judge its fullness. Since it felt a bit lighter she felt a further measure of relief; certain that some amount made its way into Commander Ekaril's body.

She jostled the serum container once more and guessed that a bit less than half remained. At that moment she came to accept that she would never see her share of the medicine, so she decided to simply push the whole remainder into Azanael.

At her request, the others then slid Azanael's bed into position against hers. Once the others had managed to get Azanael's torso exposed, Tsubael gasped, horrified at the extent of the other's injuries. The center of her chest was little more than a ragged concavity ringed with bubbled and melted skin, as though she had been shot straight through by a beam weapon and the wound had only recently closed. She swallowed back her horror and empathy and requested the forime raise and tilt the other close enough for her to administer what she knew might be Azanael's only chance at surviving her numerous injuries. She pressed the transjector against the other's belly and emptied the rest of the cellular repair agent into her compatriot.

With the others now treated as best she could manage, Tsubael fell back to let her body go limp and relax. She lowered her eyelids, exhausted, now leaning into the warmth and support offered by Akane who had remained half-seated on the bed at her right side through most of the ordeal. Sugawara-sensei had leaned in to cover her with a blanket. As her body warmed further, she felt as though she could doze at any moment, and eventually settled into slumber.


End file.
